The Ultimate Guide for Alternative Brides

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Marcy and War’s wedding was pirate themed! The day was held at Castello di Leguigno restaurant in Casina and their ceremony was officiated by a friend. Both the bride and groom wore pirate costumes made for them by Midnight Costumes. They also made the bride’s bouquet from bones, shells and rope. The couple also asked all their their guests to dress up, and everyone obliged!

“I didn’t want a wedding like all the others”, began the bride. “We are both cosplayers and nearly everyone of our guests is too. It’s a really large group of friends and we travel all throughout Italy and attend conventions. The idea of a pirate theme was inspired by Pastafarianism (Church of the flying spaghetti monster!) We wanted to make sure everyone would be dressed up so wearing a costume was a must-do on our invitation.”

“We weren’t really fussed with décor and details, mainly because we figured our guests would ornate the venue enough with the amazing variety of costumes”, she continued. “We just had a few skulls dotted about an a treasure chest cake which we made ourselves!”

Thea and Cody both struggle with anxiety, so not wanting to be the centre of everyone’s attention, they decided to elope on their own. They had a small reception for their friends and family a month later.

“We knew we wanted our wedding to be small”, began the bride. “When we found out that we could have our ceremony at the House on the Rock, a location mentioned in one of our favourite books (American Gods by Neil Gaiman) and the site of our first vacation together, we knew it was the perfect spot.”

“We wanted our wedding to be a true reflection of who we are as individuals and as a couple. We focused on what we love about one another, and the promises that we knew we could keep. We also bucked the system a bit by only letting 12 other people in on our secret before the ceremony, and 9 of them were invited. We only invited our very closest friends and family, because we didn’t want to feel like we were there to impress or entertain anyone. I think what made our wedding unique was our dedication to making it ours. We only included the things that were important to us, and we ignored the rest.”

Jana and Denis were married in 2006, just two months after meeting. With the bride being Brazilian and the groom American, there were lots of complications post-wedding. When it was all finally sorted out they travelled to Chile to renew their vows, just the two of them.

“Denis and I met in 2006″, began Jana. “We were both backpacking in Brazil and we ended up on the same bus going to a psy trance festival. Sixty-eight days later we were married in a simple ceremony and three days after that Denis had to return back to the States since his Brazilian visa was expiring. The next few years were extremely hard for us, as we were dealing with immigration issues and a custody battle over my daughter with her Brazilian father. More than a year later, when I was finally able to go to the United States, we just had an intimate dinner reception just to introduce me to his family and few friends. The custody battle was still ongoing and we could never plan anything, just waiting for the court process to decide the future of our family. Finally, seven years after all of this got resolved, we decided to go to Chile, travelling for the first time together as husband and wife, to renew our vows.”

“The renewal of vows was actually surprise to Denis from me and he only found out when we got to the desert!”, she continued. “In the beginning we were just planning a trip, but I knew that travelling to this special place, I could not let the opportunity pass of celebrating our love and confirming our vows in an intimate way. I knew that Denis would not be too enthusiastic about this idea if I planned a staged ceremony with a script. He is extremely introverted and hates to pose for pictures. Also, our budget was pretty tight, so I decided to follow my heart and let something evolve on its own while we are there.”

The inspiration for Jana’s outfit was ‘Patta Hoiri’, which means ‘Mother Earth’. ” I felt an extreme connection with the Mother Earth while I was in Chile”, she said. “When we were married seven years ago I wore black, so this time I wanted to wear white. I did not want be too colourful or glamorous, I wanted some way that I could blend myself with the desert. I painted my face with ‘Urucum’ which is the plant seed that Indians in Brazil use during ceremonies, and wore a custom made ‘Cocar’, a headpiece worn by indigenous tribes. I wanted to honour my ancestors and feel connected to the ancient tribe.”

Not all Rock n Roll weddings need to be epic DIY extravaganzas, rainbow heavens or tattoo-fests. Sometimes it’s just the fact that two people, madly in love are saying “I do” in their own unique way. That’s exactly what Jeanne and Lawrence did in August this year.

The wedding was held in the family home, a watermill in Loze, Tarn et Garonne, South West France. “We are both very political, and very much on the left”. wrote the bride. “We would also both identify as radical feminists so we really wanted to reclaim the concept of a wedding, out of its problematic patriarchal roots and into something that was meaningful to us. We only followed tradition when it made sense to us. For example, my godfather had really insisted to walk me to the altar (both my parents having passed away), but I had to vehemently refuse, as the symbolism of the bride being taken to her husband by a father­ figure is rather problematic to us. It was important to me to walk alone, yet surrounded by my chosen family: my bridesmaids and bridesmen.”

“We did not have traditionally gendered wedding parties”, she continued. “There were both men and women in the groom’s and bride’s crew (and I refused to have a ‘hen do’ too. I had a ‘wombat do’! it was a karaoke party two nights before the wedding and everyone was invited!. Lawrence and I wrote our own vows and discussed them with each other in advance to make sure we were OK with what we were promising each other. We took our vows very seriously so we did not want to keep them a surprise from each other. It was, rather, a collaborative experience, about articulating what we were really committing to.”

Ajay and Ejay were married at The Mango Farm in Antipolo, The Philippines. They chose pink and black as their colour scheme, and their theme was a mix of Converse trainers (which they both love) and music!

“We wanted to show our different personalities on our wedding day, so we started planning the wedding with just a black and pink theme”, said the bride. “Ajay was a rocker before becoming a lawyer and he’s still the vocalist of a rock band, loves wearing black shirts, and listens to Metallica. I, on the other hand, am a girly-girl. I love Hello Kitty and anything pink!”

“We incorporated other details that we both love,” she continued. “Ajay wanted to wear Chuck Taylor’s with his suit and we asked the groomsmen to wear the same. The flower girls also wore them and I changed into them for the evening. We even encouraged our guests to wear them if they wanted! On the day we were surprised that almost everyone wore them, even those who wore dresses! To fit the theme we put the Chuck Taylor image on our save the date, invitation, monogram, and table names. It became the icon that tied the whole theme together.”

Dane and Leslie’s ceremony was held in the kitchen of The North Market in Columbus, Ohio. Sounds like a strange place for a ceremony, but it was affordable to hire and they were able to dress it up with their gorgeous DIY backdrop.

“We are both artists and have very eclectic styles”, began the bride, “so we found things that we liked and put them together. I think our ceremony backdrop really made our wedding. We hand made everything from the Ohio shaped menu cards, escort cards, cake topper, table numbers, signage, programs, save the dates, invitations, ceremony backdrop, and menu cards. We had fun making everything and our guests raved over it, which made it feel different to us. We also wrote our own vows and heading so hearing the vows Dane wrote for me the first time was the best bit of the day for me.”.